


Life and Love

by Zippit



Category: Rent
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-03-03
Updated: 2007-03-03
Packaged: 2017-10-05 09:19:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/40122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zippit/pseuds/Zippit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Love and pain go hand in hand.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Life and Love

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [rentchallenge](http://rentchallenge.livejournal.com), speed challenge prompt 27 - drabbles inspired by "Every moment wounds; the last one kills."
> 
> I'm surprised I got this done with such a time constraint. Posting after coming home from work? Not a good idea. Drabble length varies between exactly 100 words and exactly 150 words.

_i. April_  
She hits Roger like a sudden thunderstorm rolling out of the Midwest; hard and pounding and immediate. She drenches him and Roger soaks it all in, drinks it down like a drowning man. Never letting up, never thirsting for anything else.

April is exotic, is everything he'd been lacking in life. They swirl and blend together, matched passions of heroin and music. Fire red hair inspiration for his music and the heroin a hallucinogen filled with mystic visions. They fill the loft with raucous laughter and the promise of days to come, ignoring the lingering scent of regret laced under their revelry.

It starts slow then speeds up until it's nothing but a blur.

The days bleed together and the sickness progresses, until death cascades down over them, a promise fulfilled at last.

Blood, red, water, spilling over the sides, the thunderstorm has passed leaving devastation in its wake. Shattered.

_ii. Mimi_  
Capricious, full of life and glowing in a manner wholly different than April. She was more like the gentle lapping of waves against the sands than the turbulence of a thunderstorm.

Denial, avoidance, and a trip to Santa Fe before the walls finally tore down and he let her surging love envelop him, bring him to life.

Jealousy and breakups were their normal only to be rivaled with the healing power of their make-ups. A sight to see and a torment to weather.

She lasted several more months before the disease claimed her. She was a missed presence and Roger mourned more intensely than before; with nothing between him and his grief.

Before it was a ride of withdrawal laced with the calming presence of Mark. Now he faced it alone, no drugs to hide behind, but steadying presences all around if he only dared to take what was offered.

_iii. Camera_  
It defines and shelters him from the storm of emotions flying around him. It's a reminder of the past and a tie to the future he might yet have. The safety net he cannot be without.

He observes, chronicles, and cherishes the moments so easily tossed about. Moments he pieces together in the masterpiece of life he gathers from those dear to him.

Without film, without his solitude, he'd be consumed. Detached, living through others, a protection he needs against the harsh elements.

Maureen…sweet diva Maureen. His attempt, his folly, when he knew what the outcome would already be.

_iv. Maureen_  
Tempestuous fury, energy, oblivion, devastation all wrapped up in one. The embodiment of what he tries to capture on film, the beauty of the moment and none of the ugliness, not on first glimpse.

He loses himself in her like he loses himself in his film, relishing every moment spent in the presence of his own passion given breath. Then the eye of the storm passed over and the tornado began.

He watches her flirt; he watches her fawn over everything and everyone new. Soothed by the gentle reassurances she murmurs in his ear and it's enough. Until it's not.

_v. Guitar_  
April drove him away from his music, Mimi drives him toward it. Every note ringing in the air, every moment pieced together in song, everything he avoided when the storm faded, he clings to as the ocean recedes.

Faithful AZT by his side, through long hours of composition and destruction, through all hours of the night and day, he barely sleeps. Obsession as passion seems to have transferred from filmmaker into musician.

Near every night, the candles or the electricity glows from the arched windows of the loft, lighting the way towards two isolated souls, seeking completion in their work.

_vi. Past_  
Roger lives in the past. Recreates the images by burning them into the air with his voice and the disconsolate strains of his guitar. Worships the past with every word he scribbles, every word he strikes from his heart and into the paper.

Anguish, despair, hope, and most tender of all, love. He takes each emotion and strives for the perfect pitch, the perfect harmony to make the earth take notice and to make the angels yearn to listen.

A journey of completion, the finished product being a record unlike anything on the streets or in the stores.

Pure Roger.

_vii. Future_  
Mark dreams of the future, dreams of promises fulfilled and dreams achieved. Far fetched and always out of reach, he knows but he doesn't care. It's the sustenance for his soul as he watches those around him wither.

It's the future he hopes to capture on film and imprint into the minds of those around him. It's hope and longing and promises given life he wishes to give as a gift to those he loves.

Roger glows and fades and blossoms before Mark's eyes. His is the future he most wants to capture. He is the inspiration for a lifetime.

_viii. Present_  
The present holds a temptation neither wants acknowledged. Glimpse of skin, of a battered heart, they both shy away. Satisfied with the status quo, easy friendship doesn't need to be confused with the tension of sexual release.

It's the afterglow of a successful concert, the perfect moment captured on film, the easiness of long acquaintance. Then _it_ flares bright and looms large.

Flush on too pale cheeks, a look in intense green eyes before one breaks the moment. Failed anticipation ebbs away in its wake mingled with the lingering possibilities of 'what if' and the blossom of 'what could've been.'

_ix. Love_  
It was a shift from love to _love_. Everyone saw it; everyone expected it except for the two concerned. They were oblivious in their own world. No one expected the length of time it would take for their love to be realized.

Maureen, Collins, Benny, and even Joanne saw it as the only possibility after Mimi passed. Mark, always locked in his own world, was then to be joined by Roger. Cohabited, lived, breathed the same atmosphere. Two sides of an equation only solved by the other.

Tiptoe, watch, guess, prod. They knew Roger had to grieve and Mark would be Mark. Then when Roger had weathered his grief, nothing changed. Mark dragged Roger out and Roger dragged Mark away from his work. Both forcing the other to enjoy life as it should be but love? Love lingered on the outside, only waiting to be let in.

_Wait another day._

_x. Hope_  
Flashpoint of weakness, of desire, they gave in. They kissed and heated the room with fire. A culmination of events and feelings finally realized. Love, glimmering brief in the sea of expectancy before vanishing as quickly as it came.

It tore them apart.

Mark threw himself into his work, avoided the loft, and slept in the last location he filmed. Stumbling in only when the need for a bed overwhelmed.

Roger fled to Santa Fe once more. Songs pouring out of him with each day that passed and as much as he denied the focus of each one, he knew.

_xi. Death_  
Quiet and subdued, the number of their group dwindling once more. Music silenced forever.

They all watch Mark; watch him sit dry eyed through the service even when he goes up to speak. The final speaker and he hits the switch. A life commemorated on film, only fitting, as a last tribute from the filmmaker to his songwriter. The muse of his life, the love of his life.

Not a dry eye by the end, images of the life and times of Roger Davis passing before their eyes; April, short hair and change, Mimi, vibrancy and easy laughter, Mark, pale expectation and the world at their feet.

An end of haunting lyrics, a combination of Mark and Roger, the last strains of love and loss echoing as Roger's fades into silence.

A quiet goodbye at the cemetery, hugs all around before they all leave in their separate directions.

_Goodbye love_.

_xii. Alone_  
A shadow of who he was, his soul scattered across the floor in the pieces of Roger still left there. Loneliness haunts his life and the films he takes on.

Better to have loved or never have loved at all?

The sadness ebbs and flows and he feels Roger everywhere he goes; in the touch of a stranger, the glimpse of a smile, the strains of a song echoing from the clubs.

Film is his life, was his life, and so it remains. Distant but there for those around him. Collins has someone, someone he can love but not like Angel.

Joanne and Maureen, together and fighting it through. He's been a shoulder to all; he's the rock to their shifting sands. He wonders where is his own.

Film can never compare to the warmth of human touch, the unspoken promises of a life as they join together with another.


End file.
